Quotehazelemv. 1.5.4.0 - portable - on xpsp3 on 'atom' board asked for MSVCR71.dll
i copied the .dll into the k-meleon folder - to no avail.
i did not have this issue on xpsp2 on an older board !

You need 2 files. The other is:
MSVCP71.dll

Those files are usually already installed by default in XP, from what I read, but seems that uninstalling certain programs can accidentally delete those too, or such.
To get those dll's, you could extract them from KM's setup file. Or do a search in your programs folder, most likely they are also contained in other programs, then copy them over to KM folder.

Hope that helps, if not you'll probably have to install the vcredist from Microsoft. Just curious, please tell if simply copying over that file helps already...?

This could be due to xpcom_core.dll file not created for Firefox 3.6.x and Seamonkey 2.1.x. Is possible that k-meleon.exe needed some fix to avoid call this file or copy it from other Gecko 1.9.2.x builded to K-Meleon by guenter:
http://dhost.info/kmeleonskins/1.9.2.16modular.7z

Quotedesga2
This could be due to xpcom_core.dll file not created for Firefox 3.6.x and Seamonkey 2.1.x. Is possible that k-meleon.exe needed some fix to avoid call this file or copy it from other Gecko 1.9.2.x builded to K-Meleon by guenter:
http://dhost.info/kmeleonskins/1.9.2.16modular.7z

No this one is created with VC9 & You can AFAIK not miix them.

It is mainly done for K-Meleon.exe build with VC 9 also and as a test whether modular GRE can be build again.

You can try whether the whole GRE can be used with Dorian's VC8 build K-Meleon.exe and kplugins.